Tropers / Agent Kirin

Agent [CONFIDENTIAL] Kirin.

Hi, I'm Agent Kirin, and I'm an artist who prefers to remain anonymous. I specialize in creature design - lots of Fakemon at the moment, but I'm trying to push myself to do more original content as well. My humans could use some work, though.

I can be found on DeviantART, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram under the same username I use here.^* I also have a Twitch account with a variant of the username, although I'm not currently streaming there. Where'd the username come from? I'd Tell You, but Then I'd Have to Kill You... Okay, here you go.

General info about me

• Age: Young adult
• Gender: Female
• Religion: Christian
• Myers-Briggs: INTJ
• Favorite color: Black
  • Favorite color combination: Black with bright, cool colors
• Favorite Pokemon type: Fairy (honorable mentions: Dark and Dragon)
• Favorite Pokemon generation: Tie between Gen 4 and Gen 7
• Favorite Pokemon move: Leech Seed
• Favorite Terraria class: Summoner
• Dream job: Character and creature design, preferably for a work of my own
• Traditional art tools: Pencils (usually mechanical), printer paper, and a binder
• Digital art tools: Photoshop, Illustrator, and an XP-Pen tablet

A few of my favorite works

If I try to list all the works I like, I'm inevitably going to forget something, so I'll just list the ones I'm most into.
Video Games:

• Pokémon (I started a bit late - Diamond was my first game, but I've come a long way since then.)
• Spyro the Dragon
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• Terraria
• Starbound
• Spore (Even if it does get repetitive after a while.)
• Viva Piñata and its sequel
• Among Us

Shows: (I've got some serious catching-up to do on some of these...)

• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
• Gravity Falls
• VeggieTales (the original)

Music:

• Thousand Foot Krutch
• The Glitch Mob
• Starset (Higher on the sliding scale than most of what I listen to, but dang, they're good)
• Set It Off (Their clean stuff, anyway)

Books:

• The Scarlet Pimpernel
• Guardians of Ga'Hoole
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• Discworld

Films:

• Pretty much everything in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but The Avengers (2012) is still my favorite.
• The Emperor's New Groove
• The Greatest Showman
• Legend Of The Guardians The Owls Of Ga Hoole (The movie is what got me into the books.)
• Pokémon Detective Pikachu

Web Video/Animation:

• ASDF Movie
• Drawfee
• Epithet Erased
• So This Is Basically...
• Something About

A few of my favorite tropes

• Throw a dart at the Werebeast Tropes page, and chances are good you'll hit one.
• Adorkable: For obvious reasons.
• Brick Joke / Chekhov's Boomerang: Oh yeah, that thing from earlier!
• Cursed with Awesome: Especially when the characters acknowledge the awesome instead of just (w)angsting over the curse.
• Dark Is Not Evil / Light Is Not Good: Interesting subversions.
• Deadpan Snarker: A great source of lampshades and one-liners.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu? / Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: As cool as punching him out can be, there are other interesting ways to interact with cosmic horrors.
• Dummied Out: It's fascinating to get a look behind the curtain and see What Could Have Been.
• The Fair Folk: Probably my favorite depiction of fairies.
• Fan Disservice: I have my limits, but not being a fan of plain ol' fanservice, I find this amusing.
• Fridge Brilliance: Holy crap, that makes so much sense!
• Good Bad Bugs: From "hilarious" to "really freaking useful." My current favorite is Pokémon Diamond and Pearl's RETIRE Glitch. No points for guessing why.
• Large Ham: Not all the time, but I love it when a character absolutely nails this.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: Can be pretty interesting, especially when Transformation Horror is involved (see below).
• Lovecraft Lite: Cosmic horror without its biggest downside? Sign me up!
• Noodle Incident: Used well, it enhances the sense that the characters have a history beyond the story itself. Besides, it can be really funny.
• Seldom-Seen Species: Not only does it add a bit of novelty to the work it's in, but you might learn about a species you never even knew existed. The same applies to mythical creatures. Like this one.
• Shown Their Work: It's really cool to see when creators do their research.
• Transformation Horror: As mentioned under Nightmare Fascination in the "Tropes that apply to me" section, I have a fascination with this kind of thing.

Tropes that apply to me

• Asperger Syndrome: Technically not a trope, but I was diagnosed at the age of three.
• Asexuality: Possibly. I don't know for sure if I actually lack attraction, or just wouldn't recognize it if it slapped me in the face. Either way, I'm at the very least uninterested. Ditto for romantic attraction.
• Author Appeal: Being an artist specializing in creature design, a lot of my work is centered around, well, creatures. I also seem to gravitate towards superheroes and shapeshifting.
• Attention Deficit Creator Disorder: Heck yes. It's difficult to balance the ideas I have with each other, let alone with life stuff.
• Berserk Button: It takes a lot to really anger me, but there are a few things that it doesn't take much of:
  • People using "autistic" as an insult. Fortunately, I don't frequent the kinds of places where I'd see this a lot, but still.
  • Art thieves.
  • Tech "support" that only gives surface-level solutions to problems and just tells you to complain to the hardware manufacturer if those don't work. Even if you've ruled out a hardware problem already.
• Cloudcuckoolander: I function fairly normally, but I do talk to myself a lot. That's one of the main things - listing all my cuckoolander-ish tendencies here would result in quite the wall of text.
• The Ditherer: A combination of types, primarily the "Too Many Trees" variety.
• Furries Are Easier to Draw: I'm not that great at drawing humans yet, at least not when I'm trying to. Occasionally I make a half-hearted attempt and it turns out okay, but I can't do it consistently. That's probably why ^note or because I went through a phase where I drew almost nothing but ponies.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: I don't swear, unless you count the word "crap" as swearing. I do use un-profanity a lot, though.
  • Oh, My Gods!: Celestia and Arceus are my go-to when I feel like using someone's name in vain.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: I bring my headphones darn near everywhere. Justified as I get overwhelmed by noisy environments pretty easily, so they're good to have on hand.
• Heroic BSoD: Despite my best efforts, I do occasionally melt down. Most times, I'm well aware that I'm overreacting.
• Literalist Snarking: All the time. Most of the people I know don't appreciate this sort of humor as much as I do, though.
• Messy Hair: Even when I do remember to comb it, my hair is pretty much always a mess.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: I have two cats and I love them to bits.
• Must Have Caffeine: Yep. Usually when I make coffee at home, I put chocolate syrup in it, and a bit of coconut oil for the texture.
• Nightmare Fascination: I am rather fascinated by involuntary and painful transformations, and quite a few freaky things in general (see my Favorite Tropes list above).
• No Social Skills: Being autistic, I have some difficulty with this, but I do my best.
• The Perfectionist: In spades. It's the main thing holding me back.
• Plot Allergy: I can't have gluten or dairy. It sucks sometimes, but it's a lot easier now than when I was first diagnosed. It also helps me eat better by eliminating some of the unhealthier options.
• Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Downplayed. I make no effort to be or avoid being feminine. I do dislike wearing dresses, but for unrelated reasons.
• Sophisticated As Heck: I alternate between formal and informal a lot. It seems to be especially obvious when I type. I find this frustrating because I feel like I'm presenting myself inconsistently.
• Tastes Like Purple: Whenever I listen to music, I always experience it visually as well. Each song has its own distinctive color and texture. Usually it's inherent in the song itself, but sometimes the context in which I hear a song will "color" that song, and I Cant Unhear It in that color.
• This Is No Time for Knitting: Just because I'm doodling doesn't mean I'm not paying attention.

Things I've launched

Tropes:

• Background Body Part

Forum threads:

• Forum Games:
  • Cast a Curse on the Next Poster

• Writer's Block:
  • Neutral/Other Character Critique Thread

Characters

Agent [CONFIDENTIAL] Kirin

Agent [CONFIDENTIAL] Kirin (or simply Confidential) is my internet persona, shown in the page image. She's a secret agent.

• Author Avatar: Of the "darker me" variety.
• Bad*** In A Nice Suit: Zig-zagged. The original design had a suit. It got scrapped with the next iteration, then salvaged for the current one.
• Baleful Polymorph: Currently trying to learn to use this technique, as an alternative for outright killing targets. Of course, her getting the hang of the spell will coincide with my learning to draw humans to use it on.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: And how. Her design basically started out as a lesson on how NOT to make a ponysona. Then she went through a phase that looked more sensible, but wasn't a secret agent (or at least, was never shown in the suit).
  • And then there's the fact that she was originally a ponysona at all.
• Kirin: Hence the name.
• Morphic Resonance: She has a black tongue, which she keeps in any form that has one. She also usually retains her green eyes, but that's by choice.
• No Name Given: Confidential might actually be her real name.
• Overt Operative: Certainly dresses the part. Downplayed, though, as she still doesn't give her name.
• Permanent Placeholder: For the longest time, I never came up with a name for the character other than "Agent Kirin" (besides adding in [REDACTED] later on), even after changing the style. The no-name stuck... until recently, when I decided to change her "name" to the more name-y sounding "Confidential".
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: I have yet to actually show her doing much "secret agent" stuff. I hope to avert this trope sometime in the foreseeable future.
• Required Secondary Powers: She's quick to get used to any new form she takes. While she won't necessarily be able to use a form to its fullest potential right off the bat, she at least won't struggle with basic movement.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: She's been mistaken for male in a few of the avatar-related forum games, possibly due to the images being so small.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: To fit into any context I need to put her in. Currently something of an Informed Ability, as I haven't had to make use of it yet.

Works that I'm working on

Those curious can find the trope lists for these in my sandbox.

Active:

• Ashes to Ashlyn: A 3D platformer starring a timid hippalectryon with phoenix-like powers who must face her fears to save the day. (Development is currently on hold because I the project was more ambitious than anticipated, but I'm still working on planning it.)

Inactive:

• Wildest Dreams: A game in which you tend a plot of land in order to attract various creatures, which you can send to explore other areas, platformer-style. Or as I like to put it, "Viva Piñata meets Classic Spyro." (Still a long way off from being feasible right now, but I can still work towards it.)
• Pokemon Heights/Depths: A Pokemon Super Fic taking place in the non-canon Symphora region, where strange things are always happening. (Not abandoned entirely, but my focus has shifted to more original projects.)

Headcanons

I'll categorize these when I have more of them.

• The Crystal Prison spell Gnasty Gnorc used in the first Spyro game was stolen from the dragons, who created it to imprison their enemies. It's specifically designed so that only a dragon can break the spell, which is why Spyro has to be the one to free them. If he'd been frozen too, Gnasty would have won.
  • I still have no explanation for where all the female dragons were, though.
• The reason that Professor Pester is so scared of the Dragonache isn't just because it's fierce and powerful (although that helps). This is the thing that he sent Jardiniero on a snipe hunt for, kicking off the events of the first game. And here you are, siccing the real deal on him. No wonder he's terrified.
• The text on the back of the Arceus plates is either (a) written in some magical universal language, or (b) perceived by the reader in their own language. This would explain why these stone tablets that are supposedly as old as the universe itself are written in English, or whichever language your game is in.
• Nihilego's tentacles collide while it floats, making a sound like wind chimes. It's a beautiful sound... unless you've ticked off a whole swarm of them.
• That thing Xurkitree has for a head is a sensory organ of some sort. It can "see" in all directions, except for a blind spot where the limbs attach.
• Fluttershy is still a vampire, but her condition has been suppressed enough that she experiences few to no symptoms, and it'd take one heck of a spell to bring it out again.

Miscellaneous

• The binder I keep my drawing paper in is being held together by duct tape because I can't find a suitable replacement. All the other ones I've looked at have the wrong texture for bearing down on, pockets that are flimsy and/or too tight to hold much paper, or both. They just don't make 'em like they used to.
• If I had to rank dairy alternatives by how well they go with coffee, it'd be something like: Oat^* Fun Fact: Oats don't contain gluten themselves, but are often processed alongside grains that do, so cross-contamination is common. Some brands are certified gluten-free. > Rice > Soy^* One of the most widely available at coffee shops > Almond^* What I usually use at home > Hemp > everything else > Coconut^* Normally I do like the taste of coconut. Just not coconut milk, especially in coffee - the flavor completely overwhelms everything else.
• I'd love to see more neurodiversity in fiction. Especially where it's not the primary shtick of the work.
• As soon as I get to the point where I can reliably and confidently draw humans, I'm going to try my hand at TF art.
• My favorite werebeast designs are the ones with just enough "were" to them that you can tell they were once human, but otherwise lean towards animalistic. The ones in Skyrim, for example.
• I feel like being a Trolling Creator would be kinda fun, but I don't know how to actually go about doing that.